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Negrito

American  
[ni-gree-toh] / nɪˈgri toʊ /

noun

Negritos, plural Negritoes plural
  1. a member of any of various Indigenous peoples of Africa, the Philippines, the Malay Peninsula, the Andaman Islands, and southern India.


Negrito British  
/ nɪˈɡriːtəʊ /

noun

  1. a member of any of various dwarfish Negroid peoples of SE Asia and Melanesia

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

Etymology

Origin of Negrito

First recorded in 1760–70; from Spanish negrito, equivalent to negr(o) “black” + -ito, diminutive suffix; cf. Negrillo ( def. )

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

This includes speaking with musicians Bill Callahan and Fantastic Negrito, who both covered the song.

From Slate Apr. 19, 2019

One particular highlight came courtesy of Oakland-based African American roots musician Fantastic Negrito, who served up a thoroughly haunting version of Lead Belly’s folk-blues classic, “In the Pines.”

From Los Angeles Times Feb. 12, 2017

Xavier Dphrepaulezz, the singer who leads Fantastic Negrito, reaches back to both the raw Chicago blues of Howlin’ Wolf and its rock extrapolations by way of Led Zeppelin and Captain Beefheart.

From New York Times Jun. 3, 2016

On Thursday, the judges are announcing the winner is Oakland, California-based music project Fantastic Negrito with a performance recorded in a freight elevator behind a work bench desk.

From Washington Times Feb. 12, 2015

He starts to thump The strings So that the noise Is real music And my cat Negrito Returns to sit On the fence.

From "Neighborhood Odes" by Gary Soto

The result of these successive movements was that the Negritoes were first driven to the recesses of the interior by the Indonesians with whom they afterwards intermingled in various degrees.

From The Manóbos of Mindanáo Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir by Garvan, John M.

From their physical resemblance, undoubted common descent, and geographical proximity, one might also expect to find some affinity in the speech of the Andaman and Malay Negritoes.

From Man, Past and Present by Haddon, Alfred Court

The Dance of the Negritos from Puebla, and the Danza de los Diablos, from the Costa Chica of Guerrero, symbolize the resistance that Indigenous and Afro-Mexican communities lead in the face of marginalization and discrimination.

From Los Angeles Times Dec. 15, 2023

These people are found in a patchwork quilt of populations on islands of Southeast Asia, including Melanesians in Papua New Guinea, aboriginals in Australia, and Negritos in the Philippines.

From Slate Oct. 11, 2012

In reality, there are only a few New Guinean—like populations in the Philippine/western Indonesia area, notably the Negritos living in mountainous areas of the Philippines.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond

The Semang Negritos persisted as hunter-gatherers trading with neighboring farmers but adopted an Austroasiatic language from those farmers—much as, we shall see, Philippine Negrito and African Pygmy hunter-gatherers adopted languages from their farmer trading partners.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond

Those relict Negritos of Southeast Asia may be the last survivors of the source population from which New Guinea was colonized.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond

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